Where We Are

Although America as a country was originally a set of explicitly Christian colonial governments, America the modern nation was founded firmly on Enlightenment ideas like Locke’s conceptions of natural rights and the social contract. While these ideals, captured in artifacts like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, continue to influence modern American governance, a sharp shift occurred during the Civil War, thanks to the political theorems of Abraham Lincoln.

As Lincoln said in his first inaugural address:

And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was “to form a more perfect Union.” But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is ‘less’ perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.

It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that ‘resolves’ and ‘ordinances’ to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.

This directly contradicts the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

American politicians today pay lip service to both Jefferson and Lincoln, deftly ignoring the critical question: why did the colonies have the right to secede from Britain, but the Southern states didn’t have the right to secede from the Union? The reason they don’t address this is because the answer is awkward to say out loud: Americans consider the welfare of the United States of America to be the highest political good in the world. We do not rest on any natural laws, higher principles, or inherent good. Rather, our interests are an end in and of themselves.

That is why America shifted into an imperial mode in World War I and has become a modern-day Roman empire. I am not saying American is inherently evil, but rather obnoxiously sanctimonious. We do not admit that we pursue power for power’s sake, instead proudly proclaiming that we are spreading freedom and democracy throughout the world when we engage in political conquest. We cloak our pragmatic actions in moral self-righteousness, while we would never truly relinquish power, money, or influence for any objective moral reason.

Now, pursuing power can be done in a godly way – just look at David, who for God’s sake fought so many battles with Israel’s enemies that he became ineligible to build God’s temple because he had shed so much blood (1 Chronicles 22:7-8). America, however, has become its own god, twisting the Christian faith that underlies our country into an institution that supports America’s exceptional greatness and refusing to enact the principles of justice laid out in the Bible. As a result, we are suffering calamities of various addictions, inflation and poverty, rampant disease and medical disorders, political strife, disintegrating families, etc.

What Comes Next

There are two factors working in opposite directions for America’s future:

• The American nation is rapidly approaching the age at which most empires fall apart.
• America the country was founded by Christians and has periodically experienced Great Awakenings that resulted in a resurgence of faith throughout the country.

Most Americans sense there’s something deeply wrong with our nation, but just like an individual nonbeliever, the idea of repenting and submitting to God with a whole heart seems scary, not to mention it would require us to abandon our sins, which we are not currently willing to do.

As Daniel said, “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are His. And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings” (Daniel 2:20-21). Thus, at some point God will remove America from being the dominant political force on the planet. The real question is: will we experience a Third Great Awakening first, voluntarily pursue godliness and righteousness, and thereby extend our empire’s lifespan, or will we only repent after the world order shifts?

It is impossible to predict. However, it would be worthwhile to explore what a reconstructed Christian political theory would look like, if we deconstructed our weird blend of Enlightenment thinking and post-modern nihilism and replaced it with a fresh look at the Bible.

Understanding Romans 13

As discussed in The Enigma of the End Times, authority to rule Israel and the nations surrounding Israel was initially granted to Babylon, then passed down to Media-Persia, Greece, and finally Rome. In Romans 13:1-7, Paul exhorts Christians to be subject to the governing authorities, which is often used to justify submission to the governments that exist today.

While it is certainly wise for modern Christians to comply with governmental laws and taxes as much as possible in order to maintain peace, avoid government persecution, and sustain a positive reputation amongst nonbelievers, Paul’s statement that “there is no authority except from God, and authorities that exist are appointed by God” in Romans 13:1 is a clear reference to the divine mandate Rome had at the time to rule over Israel and the world. However, again as explained in The Enigma of the End Times, Rome’s mandate was removed when Jesus was proclaimed King of kings in 70 AD when the seventh trumpet sounded (Revelation 11:15), which corresponded to the giving of all peoples, nations, and languages to serve the Son of Man in Daniel 7:13-14.

After that event, Christians are solely citizens of Jesus’ divine kingdom (Philippians 3:20). We serve Him and Him alone, and any interaction we have with governments that do not willfully serve Him will always be calibrated to maximize the spread of the Gospel and the fulfillment of the Great Commission. In fact, Christians became famous early in their history for submitting to death rather than obeying the Roman government’s commandment to honor the Roman emperor as a god. More recently, German Christians hid Jews during World War II rather than obey Hitler’s command to turn them over to the Nazi authorities. True Christians never put the mandates of a worldly government above those of Christ.

Moreover, as those passages from Revelation and Daniel show, Jesus now has dominion over more than just individual Christians. He also has authority over every nation on earth, each of which is required to serve Him. This means that every nation is required by God to establish a theocracy, AKA a civil government that explicitly submits to Jesus as a higher King who has authority over the government and its chief executive (“king”).

The Role of Consent in Theocracy

The term “theocracy” may seem highly charged, suggesting some kind of oppressive, abusive right-wing extremist government. In reality, however, it just means that a nation converts to Christianity as a whole, similar to how an individual converts, and structures its daily life to please God, just as a Christian structures his life to please God. While not every single individual in the nation may convert, a sufficient percentage do to change the destiny of the nation as a whole, similar to what we see, for example, in the book of Jonah with the city of Ninevah (Jonah 3:5-10).

What sets a true theocracy apart from the political ambitions of the more extreme aspects of the modern American Religious Right is the role of consent. Just as with an individual, national conversion must be borne of heartfelt repentance, a choice made by the collective as a whole. It cannot be imposed by one faction upon another. Rather, it must be a deliberate choice by the vast majority of the nation.

If you pay careful attention to the story of the Book of Exodus, you’ll notice that after God led the Israelites out of Egypt, the Israelites complained and tested God multiple times, but God responded only with provision, not with punishment or discipline. Then, in Exodus 19:3-8, God offered to enter into covenant with the Israelites and make them a special holy nation, and the Israelites responded, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.”

God then gave Moses a set of laws that the Israelites would have to follow, and the people responded with one voice, “All the words which the Lord has said we will do” (Exodus 24:3). Moses then wrote down the laws and the terms of the covenant and read them to the people, and they responded again, “All that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient” (Exodus 24:7).

The clear implication is that the people of Israel entered into their covenant with God by choice. Only after they signed up to be God’s holy people did some of them start dying for their sin, starting with the catastrophe of the golden calf in Exodus 32. That happened because, unfortunately, you can’t have the blessings of God’s presence without the curses – they go hand in hand. But God’s expectations for us always trace back to our ancestors or predecessors choosing voluntarily to enter into relationship with Him.

The Purpose of Civil Governance

Non-believing nations will instinctively form governments, for which they will develop unbiblical political philosophies as justification. Such philosophies might revolve around the divine right of a sovereign, a social contract existing for the welfare of the citizenry (as seen in the American Constitution’s preamble), etc. However, in the Bible, love for God is the driving force of the Law (Deuteronomy 6:4-6; 10:12-13). Proper civil governance is thus a spiritual discipline. It is an attempt by a God-fearing nation to please the Lord and make the nation a fit place for God to dwell in.

External force of compliance to God’s laws is therefore only applicable in a Christian nation for the purpose of keeping the land free of violence and wickedness. It is not meant to enforce righteousness on the nonbeliever. In fact, in a non-Christian nation, a Christian can serve in a government and use influence to promote wise and godly policies and laws, but much as with evangelism to a nonbelieving individual, attempting to seize the reigns of power and enforce Biblical law misses the point.

In a Christian nation, the people choose to enforce a civil code that aligns with God’s guidance for governments. The driving force of the state will therefore be godliness and righteousness. Justice makes the land tolerable for Christ to dwell in (no “polluting the land” or “bringing sin on the land,” as described in the Torah). The nation has the moral right to enforce godly laws, even on nonbelievers who dwell in their midst.

While I will explore details of what a godly government might look like in my next article, Deuteronomy 4:6 indicates that when the nations around Israel would hear of the laws that God gave them, they would recognize the Israelites as a wise and understanding people. Therefore, while the civil aspects of the Law of Moses cannot be fully adopted in modern society, and while the sacrificial aspects are certainly fulfilled in the New Covenant by the death of Jesus on the cross, we can look to the laws written by the hand of God as guideposts to how to wisely structure our own governments. We can adopt the principles that underlie them, even if we must forgo the exact details.

I call this philosophy “soft theonomy,” as it advocates the ongoing relevance of the Mosaic Law without holding that the Old Covenant laws are still in force (what I would term “hard theonomy”).

Where We Go From Here

I believe the future state of mankind is a worldwide shalom that will occur when Israel converts to Christianity and the nations as a whole acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Savior. Much as the Church is a spiritual family of converted individuals, the world will have a council of converted nations, collaborating to enact godly laws and put to rest the afflictions brought about in the past by their sinful rebellion against God.

At this point, however, America is a deconstructed nation. It was raised Christian but left the faith when it could not make rational sense of it. Now it is suffering badly from attempting to live life apart from God. As mentioned, it will either repent in time to maintain its privileged position in the current world order, or it will rediscover its faith in the wake of a change of the guard. Either way, we need a new collective consent to the will of God to restore order. Unlike the empty covenant renewal of the faithless Judahites in the time of Josiah (although he himself sincerely repented), this change must be truly from the heart.

On Anarchy and Abuse

Starting with Cain’s murder of Abel, the pre-Flood world spiraled into corruption and violence (Genesis 6:11). In response, after the Flood, God gave Noah and his sons the right to enact capital punishment (Genesis 9:5-6). This right to use violence to curtail violence was the foundation of civil government, which is why kingdoms began to sprout up amongst Noah’s descendants (Genesis 10:10), and by the time Abraham’s story starts, there are kings everywhere.

We know from Scripture that the idea of a king is not inherently evil. For example, Melchizedek king of Salem is called a “great man” in Hebrews 7:4. Furthermore, God promised Abraham that kings would eventually come from him (Genesis 17:6). To that end, the Mosaic Law explicitly authorized the establishment of an Israelite king (Deuteronomy 17:14-20). Even the warnings about the evil of the king Israel sought in 1 Samuel 8:10-18 clearly pertain to Saul specifically, as David did not behave that way, but rather said in the Spirit that “He who rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises, a morning without clouds, like the tender grass springing out of the earth, by clear shining after rain” (2 Samuel 23:3-4).

Of course, we do see great evil coming from kings in the Bible. In fact, enemy number one for God’s people in Scripture is always rulers who do not fear God. Examples would be the Pharaoh attempting to slaughter all male Hebrew babies (Exodus 1:15-16), Saul pursuing David to protect his own throne, Herod slaughtering all the male Jewish children in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16), and, of course, the Roman government scourging and crucifying the Son of God Himself (Matthew 27:26).

In this way, political rule is much like fatherhood. It is an institution of power, and therefore it is ripe for abuse. There are many fathers who rule their families with violence (whether verbal, physical, or even sexual). But does this mean we must eliminate fatherhood? Obviously not. Authority is an inevitability in human life. Instead, God expects those who wield power to do so for the benefit of those under their authority. Rulers must have a heart like David, who went so far as to offer his life to God in place of the Israelites who were plagued for David’s foolishness (2 Samuel 24:17 – note that God brought about David’s foolishness so that He would have justification to punish the Israelites who had provoked Him to anger [verse 1], so God was not punishing the innocent for David’s sin).

Anarchy is thus not compatible with the Bible. Rather, rulers must live in fear of the living God who will call them to account for any exploitation of their positions of power. Playing politics is conducting oneself with “fleshly wisdom” (2 Corinthians 1:12), and the faithful king must trust that if he conducts himself instead with “simplicity and godly sincerity” (ibid), God will establish him and protect his throne. And to the extent that a government is democratic, the people must hold their rulers accountable to this as well.

Conclusion

I will close with a word of encouragement. Despite the mess America is in right now, if we pay attention, we can see how God is using our sinfulness to try to bring about good for us, much as He used the wickedness of Jacob’s sons to save many lives (Genesis 50:20). To understand how, consider Nehemiah 8:17, where we see that in the history of the nation of Israel, the Feast of Booths was neglected after Joshua’s death (something similar is recorded in 2 Chronicles 35:18 regarding Passover).

While God was most certainly displeased with Israel’s lackluster commitment to His Law regarding this important feast, we can easily imagine how ingrained such disobedience had become in Israelites prior to the Exile. They must have taken it in stride, just one more component of their cultural norms. It wasn’t until almost 1000 years after Joshua’s death, after Israel had been almost completely destroyed and carried away from their homeland and held in captivity, that they decided to read Moses’ Law and renew their commitment to keep the Feast of Booths.

Similarly, today, God is allowing us to push our sin to its absolute extent, so that Americans will begin to wake up to the fact that something is deeply wrong with how we do things, and people who are searching for answers are much more likely to find them than those who are comfortable in a cultural rut. Furthermore, God is allowing traditional forms of political philosophy and classical education to lapse, so that we will return to the Bible for answers, instead of tradition and conservative thought. Lord willing, it will not take something so drastic as the first destruction of Jerusalem to wake Americans up to the reality that only the Bible has true answers.

How realistic is it that we will renew our covenant? Consider again: The days of Ahaz, king of Judah, were very dark. Wickedness and false worship were rampant during his reign. Judahites were losing relatives to captivity and war left and right. The Temple worship system was completely shut down. Worst of all, a judgment of complete destruction and devastation was looming over the nation (Jeremiah 26:17-19).

It must have been a time of great despair for the righteous. However, in the very first year of the reign of Ahaz’s son Hezekiah, it was all completely reversed. Upon taking charge of the nation, Hezekiah immediately cleansed the Temple and restored sacrifices and Levitical worship. And, as Chronicles 29:36 says, “Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced that God had prepared the people, since the events took place so suddenly.”

National faithfulness can be restored very quickly, no matter how dark things appear at any given moment. May we choose the path of Hezekiah and restore proper godly worship throughout our land. Amen.